I got this movie on video when the second half of the Marlene Dietrich collection came out. (Anybody remember VHS? Ah, the good old days.) A friend had recorded it for me, but the sound was all garbled. I enjoyed the parts I understood, and when it came out on video I had to have it.
There are so many enjoyable moments in this movie. Congresswoman Frost gets one of the best masquerading as "Gretchen Gesundheit," only to cause her newfound companions to gleefully remark "We're fraternizing with a sneeze!" Heck, she gets all the best moments. Jean Arthur, an actress I never cared for due to her high irritating factor ("Shane," anyone?), does wonders portraying an irritating person. Phoebe Frost is so stalwart and dull it's remarkable she even breathes. When she finally lets her hair down it's painfully funny. I refer of course to her performance of "The Iowa Song." Erika (Marlene, of course) forces her to perform the song in front of everyone at the cabaret, hoping to mortify her into leaving. Phoebe instead gives it the old college try, and to watch her at the end of the song is amazing. She's terrible, but she's completely forgotten that little fact. She looks so thrilled to be there, singing the praises of her native land, and everyone else is so thrilled they feel compelled to sing along. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. We're also treated to a quick cut to Marlene, who's clapping her hands and puffing her cigarette like a freight train. Another great scene is Phoebe displaying her new dress to Captain Pringle. She found it hanging on the handlebars of a bicycle and it looked devastating. On her it looks, as she aptly puts it, "like a circus tent in mourning for an elephant that has died." How someone so humorless as her can come up with things like that I'll never know. (Billy Wilder must have been a great lunch companion!) There is one strange thing about this movie, though, and here it is. Why would Marlene Dietrich and Jean Arthur fight over John Lund, and even more puzzling, how in the hell could Marlene lose? It's unbelievable! According to legend, Marlene had quite a bit of animosity towards Jean Arthur, and on screen she sure acts like it. Erika insults or mocks every little thing about Phoebe, down to the ribbons ("shoelaces") in her hair. She even says she has a face like "a kitchen floor." Erika might lower herself that far (having no dignity left), but Marlene? Never. Not to mention playing a Nazi sympathizer. Why, we even see her whispering into Hitler's ear! The look of horror and surprise on Captain Pringle's face when he sees that is priceless. He's talking about how she couldn't have been that important, and he looks up to see her chatting with the Fuhrer. I imagine if Marlene Dietrich had gotten that close to Hitler she would have killed him, and maybe gotten away with it.
In all fairness, Marlene gets some memorable moments as well, such as when she bitches about her springy mattress. Pointing out a spring, she mutters "That one is the worst." And who can ever forget her surprisingly tolerable rendition of "Black Market"? Better yet, who can forget how, during "Illusions," she reaches back and puts her cigarette in Frederick Hollander's mouth WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING AT HIM? I can just see some other less elegant actress gouging him in the eye with it.
I also admire this movie for showing what Germans must have actually been like after the war, instead of focusing on Nazi atrocities like other films are prone to doing. This movie says that the Nazi Party wasn't Germany, at least not all of it, and definitely seeing the Germans living in the ruins of their formal lives drives the point home.
There are so many enjoyable moments in this movie. Congresswoman Frost gets one of the best masquerading as "Gretchen Gesundheit," only to cause her newfound companions to gleefully remark "We're fraternizing with a sneeze!" Heck, she gets all the best moments. Jean Arthur, an actress I never cared for due to her high irritating factor ("Shane," anyone?), does wonders portraying an irritating person. Phoebe Frost is so stalwart and dull it's remarkable she even breathes. When she finally lets her hair down it's painfully funny. I refer of course to her performance of "The Iowa Song." Erika (Marlene, of course) forces her to perform the song in front of everyone at the cabaret, hoping to mortify her into leaving. Phoebe instead gives it the old college try, and to watch her at the end of the song is amazing. She's terrible, but she's completely forgotten that little fact. She looks so thrilled to be there, singing the praises of her native land, and everyone else is so thrilled they feel compelled to sing along. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. We're also treated to a quick cut to Marlene, who's clapping her hands and puffing her cigarette like a freight train. Another great scene is Phoebe displaying her new dress to Captain Pringle. She found it hanging on the handlebars of a bicycle and it looked devastating. On her it looks, as she aptly puts it, "like a circus tent in mourning for an elephant that has died." How someone so humorless as her can come up with things like that I'll never know. (Billy Wilder must have been a great lunch companion!) There is one strange thing about this movie, though, and here it is. Why would Marlene Dietrich and Jean Arthur fight over John Lund, and even more puzzling, how in the hell could Marlene lose? It's unbelievable! According to legend, Marlene had quite a bit of animosity towards Jean Arthur, and on screen she sure acts like it. Erika insults or mocks every little thing about Phoebe, down to the ribbons ("shoelaces") in her hair. She even says she has a face like "a kitchen floor." Erika might lower herself that far (having no dignity left), but Marlene? Never. Not to mention playing a Nazi sympathizer. Why, we even see her whispering into Hitler's ear! The look of horror and surprise on Captain Pringle's face when he sees that is priceless. He's talking about how she couldn't have been that important, and he looks up to see her chatting with the Fuhrer. I imagine if Marlene Dietrich had gotten that close to Hitler she would have killed him, and maybe gotten away with it.
In all fairness, Marlene gets some memorable moments as well, such as when she bitches about her springy mattress. Pointing out a spring, she mutters "That one is the worst." And who can ever forget her surprisingly tolerable rendition of "Black Market"? Better yet, who can forget how, during "Illusions," she reaches back and puts her cigarette in Frederick Hollander's mouth WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING AT HIM? I can just see some other less elegant actress gouging him in the eye with it.
I also admire this movie for showing what Germans must have actually been like after the war, instead of focusing on Nazi atrocities like other films are prone to doing. This movie says that the Nazi Party wasn't Germany, at least not all of it, and definitely seeing the Germans living in the ruins of their formal lives drives the point home.